2 Responses to “ngorongoro”

1. Chicken Mama & Chainsaw Tommy says:

   October 8, 2007 at 17:18

   Okay, how the hell did you get the shot of the lion sleeping? We need some info to go with this update!
2. phil says:

   October 9, 2007 at 07:55

   i don’t want to take away the romance of our safari, but here goes: check out this photo taken by seth (you remember our minister) of a lion in ngorongoro crater earlier this year. that’s how you get that close.

   our experience was different from this photo. we entered the crater at sunrise and didn’t see another vehicle for well over an hour and spent most of our 8 hours in the crater pretty much alone. the serval cat had four or five vehicles around it, as did the sleeping lion, and we usually left animals when the number of vehicles got high.

   i was apprehensive of ngorongoro crater specifically – and tanzania as a whole generally – for exactly this reason. in uganda we have always been on our own on wildlife drives. no one knows about tourism here yet. i wasn’t sure i’d like it with all the land cruisers…sort of like going to a zoo. then i read an article about ngorongoro addressing these topics that changed my mind.

   basically it said: ngorongoro is one of the few places that you can see animals up close behaving exactly as they do if there were no people around. they are totally wild – no care no feeding – but they are so used to humans and vehicles that they pay no attention to them. habituated. animals in less-traveled areas will usually get skittish or defensive or something when a car approaches. so you’re always watching this animal’s response to danger, alarm, etc.

   i liked reading that and am glad i did before our visit, because it took away any misgivings i had about the crater.